USG Resource Guide for Transitioning to Remote Instruction
Greetings and welcome to the USG Resource Guide for Transitioning to Remote Instruction! This Resource Guide has been created to help face-to-face faculty teach remotely during institutional closures in response to concerns about COVID-19 as part of the Keep Teaching USG Initiative. The goal is to use alternative pedagogies to meet course objectives. You can begin the course at anytime (Continuous/Open Enrollment) and complete in 2-3 hours. There is no cost or textbook required. For more information please see the Keep Teaching USG site.
This Resource Guide offers three options (based on unique scenarios), and provides tips and additional development resources. Throughout the Resource Guide, resources highlighting elements of design and pedagogy are included for faculty to use as references. Please take the time to explore the content of the course by starting with the Resource Guide Overview below. We have valuable information there about helping you and your students to get connected.
It is important to track your students so you can identify those who are missing in action. You might try keeping a spreadsheet to track the last time that you had contact with a student: discussion post, assignment or quiz submission, participation in a synchronous session, email, text, or phone call. Plan to reach out on a weekly or bi-weekly basis to contact those students or submit them to your institution's At-Risk Reporting system.
The content in each option highlights key topic areas critical to successfully setting up and facilitating your online course.
*Note: The resources and tips provided in the USG Resource Guide for Transitioning to Remote Instruction should be used in conjunction with information/guidelines provided by your home institution.
Start Here
Resource Guide Overview
Welcome to the USG Resource Guide for Transitioning to Remote Instruction.
Moving your course online takes a little bit of forethought and technical knowledge, especially if this move occurs in the middle of a term. This course provides information to support you, and provides various options given the differing levels of technical expertise that instructors may have. This course also considers faculty and student access to technology, if students no longer have access to their institution's computer labs.
No matter which option you choose to start with, it is important to communicate with your students on a weekly basis to decrease their sense of isolation. Remember that some of your students may have very limited access to technology once they are home. Do your best to accommodate students' technology limitations, practice kindness and patience, and roll with changes as they are communicated by your institutions.
The suggestions below are mainly for lecture-style courses. Courses with labs will need to seek direction from their department leads. Please note that YouTube is filled with videos of people doing the same labs you have your students completing. These and other simulation software tools might help.
This option describes how to use various tools in the Brightspace LMS for teaching and assessing students. The tools here describe how to create content, quizzes (exams), have students submit work using the Assignments submission tool, and require students to participate in online discussions.
Faculty with limited knowledge of the Brightspace learning management system or remote instruction methodologies may want to host webinars during regularly scheduled class times to continue teaching their class in a synchronous manner. Faculty can choose to have students submit their work using the LMS or may opt for assignments to be described and submitted via institutional email or the LMS email. This option describes how to use various videoconferencing software tools to present lectures to students during regularly scheduled course meeting times. However, it is important that you record all video conference sections and make them available to students for later viewing; some students may only be able to download or watch videos when they have a chance to access the Internet. Additionally, some students may not be able to access the recordings at all, therefore it is important to provide highlights via email.
The simplest option is to teach your course via your and your students' institutional email accounts. This might be appropriate if you or your students have limited access to high-speed Internet. Option 3 provides alternate pedagogies, information, and considerations that will help you and your students maintain continuity with minimal technical skills needed.
Important Note
To create course materials in D2L Brightspace, the learning management system used across the USG, you need to create modules before you can add any other content pages. It is best to name your modules by weeks or units, and to maintain consistency in your naming structure. Your modules will show up on the left-hand side of your course as a Table of Contents. See more details for creating content in Option 1.
Finding Internet Connections
We understand that some students and faculty may have challenges accessing the Internet from their homes and may not always be able to get to areas with Wi-Fi. We suggest some of the following options.
The FCC has asked companies to work with Americans impacted by COVID-19 to help provide them with Internet access. Students and faculty may be able to access free Internet through service providers available in their area. Companies are also pledging to keep public Wi-Fi hot-spots open for any American who needs them. Additionally, some cell phone companies are extending unlimited data plans to existing customers for no additional charge. Restaurants, coffee shops, public libraries, etc. may have available high-speed Internet that you can access from isolation in your car or from outdoor patios even if they are closed. Do some research, ask around, and call service providers in your area and ask for help.
More information:
FCC agreement stating that providers will waive late fees, not cutoff service for lack of payment, and open hot-spots.
Comcast COVID-19 response: offers free Wi-Fi for 2 months to low income families plus all Xfinity hot-spots are free to the public during this time.
AT&T COVID-19 response: offers open hot-spots, unlimited data to existing customers, and $10/month plans to low income families.
Verizon COVID-19 response: no special offers, but following the FCC agreement.
Sprint COVID-19 response: follows FCC agreement, provides unlimited data to existing customers, and, starting Tuesday, 3/17/2020, will allow all handsets to enable hot-spots for 60 days at no extra charge.
T-Mobile COVID-19 response: follows FCC agreement, plus unlimited data to existing customers, and, coming soon, will allow all handsets to enable hot-spots for 60 days at no extra charge (I expect others will follow).
Phone hot-spot. If you have a cell phone and data plan with Internet access, in some instances, your phone can be used as a hot-spot to share data with other devices such as a desktop, laptop, or iPad. See here (iPhone), here (Android), and here (tethering).
USG Institutions: Consider developing campus Wi-Fi “Parking Lot Hot-Spots” for students and faculty with broadband connectivity issues. To help mitigate low bandwidth/access issues, consider designating “Parking Lot Hot-Spots” in one or more locations on the campus. Similar to designated cell phone parking lots at airports, these would be zones where students and faculty can come to campus, park their cars, and access campus-based high-speed broadband, in isolation, in their own automobiles. This will necessitate a strong outdoor Wi-Fi signal. Leadership and ITS should consider easy guest network access as well, in case their campus may be the closest location for students or faculty from another USG institution.
FREE Wi-Fi at a public library: This is a map of the Wi-fi available at all library parking lots around the state of Georgia: https://georgialibraries.org/library-everywhere/
If you or your students still can't access the Internet, consider some of the options described in Option 3.
Institutional Support
Click here to find your institution's D2L (GeorgiaVIEW) Administrator or CTL Director on your campus for help and technical support if it is not listed below. For direction on proctored exams, labs, and other decisions, please contact your department leads.
General Help information
USG Help Desk
24 hours a day / 7 days a week
D2Lhelp.view.usg.edu
Toll-free: 1-855-772-0423
Keep Teaching USG - Resources for teaching online
D2L Brightspace Resources
Accessing Student Emails
Campus email is the official communication channel of institutions. Every student has an email account set up by the institution. Faculty can find student email addresses and directory/contact information in Banner. Ask your institution to urge students to update their contact information in Banner and provide them with instructions.
To access student contact information, sign into BanWeb and select “Display Email List” on the summary class list.
Contact your institution's ITS department for instructions, or the list of students and their emails.
Important FERPA Information for Sharing Grades
This section is extremely important. FERPA requires that a student’s information is protected at all times. Faculty have two options: Use the D2L Brightspace Gradebook in your LMS or keep grades on a personal gradebook or spreadsheet on your computer and communicate grades to students via telephone. It is important when communicating academic performance or grades with student via phone that you are verifying identification with that student prior. We recommend having the student verify their institutional student ID, as using DOB or SSN may be information that is readily available to the students’ parents. Faculty cannot communicate grades via email. Email is an unsecure channel and transmitting grades via email is a FERPA violation.
Urge your students to sign up for text or email notifications of grades (link to notifications video here) or to download the D2L Brightspace Pulse mobile app (available on the App Store or Google Play) to easily view grades. If students are unable to access their grades in the LMS, you can email or text them your feedback and communicate their grades over the phone (again, verifying their identity first).
FERPA Information: While FERPA does not specifically prohibit a school from disclosing personally identifiable information from a student’s education records over the telephone, it does require that the school use reasonable methods to identify and authenticate the identity of parents, students, school officials, and any other parties to whom the school discloses personally identifiable information from education records. 34 CFR § 99.31(c).